By now I was exhausted, but at last I dragged Judd across the bridge and we collapsed together on the far bank. Instantly he fell into a deep sleep.
I started to think things through and tried to decide on my next move. I needed to contact Alice and let her know what had happened. It was also vital to warn Grimalkin of the threat. She had to keep the Fiend’s head away from this cursed place at all costs. But I needed a mirror to do that. It would have to wait until daylight, when I could return to my room.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, the sun was just above the eastern moors. I rose to my feet and yawned, stretching to relieve the stiffness in my limbs.
I stared down angrily at Judd, who lay at my feet; his gown was torn and stained with blood where the strigoi had bitten him. There were livid purple puncture marks on his neck.
He suddenly opened his eyes and sat up, then groaned and held his head in his hands for a while, his whole body shuddering as he drew in deep breaths of air. At last he looked up at me. ‘Where’s your master?’ he cried.
‘He’s dead,’ I told him bluntly, feeling my throat tighten with emotion. ‘No – it’s worse than that. They’ve cut his head from his body but it still talks. They’ve used powerful dark magic, and his soul is a prisoner inside that head – and in terrible pain. I have to free him. I have to bring him peace. And it’s all thanks to you. Why didn’t you warn us? Why did you lead us into a trap? You claimed to know Mistress Fresque. Surely you realized that she was a daemon?’
He just stared at me without replying.
‘It was all very convenient, the way you had to go off to deal with that supposed boggart, leaving us to visit her house alone. You knew what was going to happen, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I knew. It’s a long story but I had little choice. Believe me – I didn’t want to do it. I’m sorry for what happened.’
‘Sorry!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s easy to say but it means nothing.’
He looked at me for a few moments without speaking before turning away. Then he reached towards me with his left hand. ‘Help me up, Tom!’
Once on his feet, he swayed as if about to fall. I didn’t try to steady him. At that moment he could have fallen onto his face and smashed his teeth in for all I cared.
‘I need food. I’m weak – he took so much blood from me,’ he muttered.
Could I trust him? I wondered. He certainly wasn’t in league with the daemons now. I had to take a chance.
‘I have rooms at the tavern over there,’ I said, pointing. ‘I have money as well. I can buy us breakfast.’
Judd nodded. ‘I’d be grateful for that, but go slowly. I’m as weak as a new-born kitten.’
There were fewer people about today, and I led the way through the near-empty streets towards the inn. I had to rap on the door a long time before the innkeeper finally opened it. He bent forward and scowled into my face as if trying to intimidate me.
‘I’m surprised to see you again, boy! You must have more lives than a cat.’
‘Mr Brinscall here will be using my master’s room,’ I told him as we went inside. ‘But first we need a very big breakfast—’
‘Aye, and make it thick slices of ham, eggs, sausage and lots of bread and butter. Oh, and a big pot of tea and a bowl of sugar,’ Judd interrupted.
‘Let’s see the colour of your money first!’ the innkeeper snapped angrily, noting his dirty ragged gown.
‘I’ll pay the bill, and in silver,’ I told him.
‘Then pay me before you cross that bridge again!’ he sneered; then, without another word, went off to fry our breakfast.
‘We’ve a lot to say to each other, Tom, a lot to explain, but I’m weary to my very bones. What do you say we eat first and talk later?’ Judd suggested.
I nodded. I could hardly bear to look at him, and we ate in silence. Judd put three large spoonfuls of sugar into his tea. He sipped it slowly and smiled. ‘I’ve always had a sweet tooth, Tom, but I really need that now!’
I didn’t return his smile; I didn’t even like to hear him using my name. The sugar didn’t seem to help: soon he started nodding off at the table, so I tapped him on the shoulder and suggested that he went up to his room to sleep for a while.
While he did so, I put the time to good use. First I attempted to contact Alice using the small mirror in my room. After almost an hour I’d had no success. Deciding to try again later, I took my notebook out of my bag, crossed the bridge and walked back up onto the eastern moor.
I felt relatively safe with the sun shining, so once there I drew a rough map of Todmorden, concentrating on the positions of the big houses set back in the trees on this side of the river. I put crosses by the ones I thought the orbs had emerged from. I was pretty sure about four of them, but the remaining five were in doubt. I also tried to pinpoint the place where I’d seen that strange column of red light. It was difficult to locate exactly, but I marked the general area. Whatever it was, it had certainly been of interest to the disembodied witches.
Then I went back to my room and tried once more to contact Alice, again without success. What could be wrong? I wondered. She usually responded much more quickly than this. I dozed on my bed, thinking through all that had happened. It was noon before Judd knocked on my door. We left the inn and walked into the trees near the riverbank. What we had to say wasn’t for the ears of the innkeeper or anyone else.
We settled ourselves down, staring at the water, and I waited for him to speak.
‘I have to begin by thanking you for my life, Tom. I would have died last night. At first they used to take only a little of my blood every seventh night – my body could just about cope with that. But that was the third time they’d fed since I last saw you.’
‘You mean they’d kept you in the pit before they sent you to Chipenden?’
‘They let me out so I could bring you here,’ Judd explained.
‘How long were you in the pit?’ I asked him.
‘A couple of months, give or take a few days. Strange, isn’t it? We spooks put witches in pits. I never thought I’d end up in one myself!’
‘How did you survive? What did you eat?’
‘Luckily it wasn’t the dead of winter or I’d have frozen to death,’ Judd went on. ‘But they fed me all right. They had to keep me alive in order to get the blood they needed. Each pair – each strigoi and strigoica – keep one or more prisoners whom they feed on. They’d really prefer to hunt and kill their prey in the surrounding countryside, but that would draw attention, and the military might be called in. As for food, they drop it into the pit raw. I’ve been living off raw mutton – sometimes offal.’
I pulled a face at the thought of eating raw offal.
‘What would you do, Tom?’ he asked, seeing my expression of disgust. ‘I had little choice – eat that or die. Without food to replace what I lost when they bled me, I’d have been dead within a couple of weeks.’
I nodded. ‘It’s true,’ I agreed. ‘We do what’s necessary in order to survive. I’d have done exactly the same.’
I knew that I was certainly not guiltless myself. Over the course of my three years as a spook’s apprentice, the morals and standards taught me by my dad and mam had gradually been compromised. I’d been less than honest with my master, using dark magic to keep the Fiend at bay.
‘Aye, it’s a long twisting road that brings you to such a situation,’ Judd murmured bitterly. ‘As I said, my travels eventually took me to Romania, where I learned all about Transylvanian creatures of the dark and how best to combat them. Fat lot of good it did me in the end!
‘They work together in that country, you see – elementals, daemons and witches plot and actively set out to destroy spooks. It wasn’t long before I became their next target. They watch and wait, working out the best way to hurt or destroy you. I was easy meat. I was in love, you see. Spooks in the County don’t usually take a wife, but in Romania the custom is different. I’d asked for a young woman’s
hand in marriage and had been accepted. We were in love and looking forward to the wedding. But it was not to be.
‘A strigoica claimed her – they prefer living to dead bodies. You’ve met the daemon – she possesses the body of Cosmina Fresque.’
‘Mistress Fresque is the woman you love? And she’s host to the daemon?’ I said, thinking how pretty Cosmina was and understanding why Judd had fallen in love with her. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do? Can’t we drive the strigoica out of her body?’
‘I only wish that were so, but possession by a Romanian daemon doesn’t work like that – it’s not the same as in the County. It can’t be reversed. The soul is driven out and is unable to return.’ Judd shook his head sadly. ‘So consider her dead – I certainly do, and must learn to live with my grief. She’s gone off into Limbo. I just hope she can find her way to the light. I’ve lost her, and have had a long time to think of my folly and how I was so easily duped.’
‘So how did you end up here, back in the County?’ I asked him.
‘At first I was devastated by what had happened,’ he replied. ‘For almost a year I wandered like a man insane, unable to do my job. They could have killed me then – and would have, but for the Romanian spook who’d trained me. I didn’t even know he was there, but wherever I went, he followed close behind to defend me from the servants of the dark who wanted my life. Eventually I came to my senses, but then my mind was fixed only on vengeance. I wanted to kill that strigoica, or at least drive her from the body of my beloved Cosmina. I searched and searched but could find no trace of her – until at last I discovered that she had gone abroad with her strigoi partner. So I followed.
‘They had been warned by witches – I told you that they work together – and were ready for me. Like a fool, I walked straight into their trap and ended up in the pit – food for the strigoi. After a week or so they passed me on to their neighbours further up the valley. They swap victims in some sort of trade. I think the flavour of blood varies – they like a change every now and then.’
‘So did they promise you your freedom in exchange for luring me and the Spook here?’ I wondered.
‘That and something much more precious to me,’ Judd told me. ‘You see, I’m half Romanian and, as I told you, still have family back in that country – my mother and her kin. If I didn’t do as they said, they threatened to take their blood – to kill every last one of them. Of course they’d no intention of letting me go. After I left you I headed north, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and this cursed place. It hadn’t been dark for more than an hour when they caught me and dragged me back to that pit. I just hope my family are all right.’
I understood the pressure he’d been under and sympathized, but I was still far from happy. There had been times when I’d be threatened by the dark in a similar way. But the Spook had instilled in me a strong sense of duty and I’d resisted. How could I ever forget that Judd Brinscall’s betrayal had resulted in my master’s death?
It was quite a while before I broke the uneasy silence that had fallen between us. ‘Why are there so many Romanian servants of the dark here in Todmorden?’ I asked.
‘They came here to find space and fresh victims,’ Judd told me. ‘Romania has so many of their kind that whole areas, especially in the province of Transylvania, are under their control. They’ve been building up their numbers on the County border for years, but lying low so as not to draw too much attention to themselves. When there are enough of them here and they grow stronger, they will no longer be content to exist on the blood of victims confined in pits – they’ll expand westwards into the County, killing wantonly.’
OUR VISIT TO Todmorden had cost my master his life, but he had not died in vain. Now that I knew of the increasing danger, and of the threat to the County, I could perhaps do something about it. Otherwise it might have developed and grown unchecked for many years. But first I had to retrieve the Spook’s head and burn it in order to free his soul. Perhaps Judd Brinscall’s knowledge of Romanian dark entities might help me to do that.
‘How do you destroy a strigoica?’ I asked him. ‘I mean permanently, so that it can’t go off and possess another body. How do you do that? I’ve killed two strigoi hosts already but it hasn’t achieved anything in the long term. And Mistress Fresque told me that the first strigoi I drove from its body would quickly find a new one and be back to hunt me down.’
‘Two? You’ve killed two? Which was the first one?’
‘It was the partner of your enemy.’
‘Well done, Tom,’ Judd said with a grim smile. ‘Then Cosmina is half avenged already. There are many ways of dealing with strigoii and strigoica, but few are permanent: even decapitation or a stake through the left eye can only drive them out of their host. Garlic or roses can be used as a defence, and while salt can’t do them any great damage, a moat filled with salty water keeps them away.’
‘That’s the same method we used against water witches . . . ’ I realized.
‘That it is, Tom. No doubt you spent a tough six months getting thick ears from Bill Arkwright. I’d had enough of it and ran back to Chipenden before my stay was half over,’ Judd told me.
I nodded sadly. ‘Bill’s dead. He was killed in Greece fighting the dark.’
‘Well, I can’t say I liked the man,’ he said, ‘but I’m sorry to hear that he’s dead. The northern area of the County will be a more dangerous place now. What became of Tooth and Claw? They were good working dogs but Tooth didn’t take to me much: he was well-named. He bit a piece out of my leg one night and the scar is still here to this day!’
‘Tooth is dead, killed by water witches. But Claw is still alive and has two pups, Blood and Bone. We left them back at Chipenden with the local blacksmith,’ I explained.
‘Pity, that. They’d be more use here helping us with these witches,’ Judd replied. ‘But to return to what we were discussing: the way to put a permanent end to the strigoica who possess living bodies is to burn the body while they are still within it. With the strigoii who possess the dead, the only sure way is to expose them to sunlight. I know a lot about dealing with such creatures. We need to work together now – I want to make up for what I did and there’s a lot that I can teach you. But one thing I can tell you: there’s little to fear from the strigoi coming back to kill you. Oh, it’ll find itself another host eventually, but once it’s been driven out of a body its memory starts to disintegrate. With a different host it’ll start a new stage of its existence and forget all about Todmorden and its former strigoica partner. She was just trying to frighten you, Tom, that’s all.’
‘I saw your book in the daemon’s library – the one about the moroii,’ I said.
‘I wrote that in happier days. The daemons took it from me to make the library seem more convincing. You see, each strigoi and strigoica dwelling is a place of deceit, a house of illusions. They use a grimoire as the source of those illusions. That and my own book were probably the only real books in there. Now, explain why they wanted you and John Gregory here. They never bothered to tell me.’
I explained about our struggle against the Fiend and how we had bound him temporarily. Then I told him that Grimalkin was on the run with the Fiend’s head, trying to keep it out of the hands of our enemies.
‘Because you were guiding us here, we put most of our suspicions aside. It was only after they’d murdered my master that the strigoica explained what they wanted,’ I explained. ‘She had been put under pressure to lure us to Todmorden. You told me that they all worked together – well, they are certainly doing that now, and for a special purpose. They killed my master and bound his soul within his head just so they could put pressure on me. They want me to summon Grimalkin so that they may kill her and take back the Fiend’s head in exchange. That’s something I’m certainly not going to do. I need to find my master’s head and burn it. They must have hidden it somewhere. We must search the hillside and check the house of every one of those daemons.’
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‘I’m sorry, Tom, but if we attempt that, they would know what we were up to before we reached the first house. Day or night, one of each pair is always awake and alert to any threats. They’d sense us almost immediately and summon the witches to defend them. Romanian witches use animism magic. Unlike Pendle witches, who generally use blood, bone or familiar magic, they draw the life force out of their victims without even touching them. Their orbs would be there in the blinking of an eye. Within seconds we’d be dead, our animas drained. Later they’d use what they’d taken from us in rituals and incantations, and gather further power from the dark.’
‘So what can we do?’ I demanded, frustrated by Judd’s explanation. I already knew most of what he’d just told me, but that knowledge wouldn’t deter me. I had to release my master’s spirit. I was determined to do something.
‘We’d have to deal with the witches first,’ Judd continued, ‘picking them off one by one. That might give us half a chance. Unlike female daemons, witches sleep during the day so that’s the time to strike. They don’t have a partner to watch over them.’
‘Are the witches more powerful than the daemons?’ I asked.
‘Yes, without a doubt – the moroii are the weakest of the hierarchy. So we try to kill the witches first – take them unawares while they are sleeping.’
‘Well, I know where at least four of their houses are,’ I told Judd. ‘While you were sleeping, I went up onto the moor again and marked them on a map. Here they are . . . ’ I reached into my breeches pocket, pulled out my sketch and handed it to him.
He studied it for a few moments and then gave me a searching glance. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to a mark I’d made.